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The Colossian Way – Eager to learn more about The Colossian Way experience and how it could benefit you, your church, or your faith community? Please provide your phone number (above) to receive information and to be contacted by our team. Quarterly Newsletter – Be encouraged and equipped as you navigate faithfulness in a post-Christian culture. Our newsletter invites introspection, fuels discussion, and shares innovations. Monthly Prayer Letter – Stay in touch with TCF President, Michael Gulker, as he wrestles with the gospel reality of how our deepest conflicts can become the occasion for spiritual growth and witness. Blog – A new conversation for turbulent times. Stay in touch with the surprising ways Christians are engaging current cultural polarizations to grow in their love for God and others.Events - Be the first to hear about the gatherings we're hosting, welcoming you into rich conversation with a growing community of Christians.

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Colossian Blog

My friend Jake* had snot running down his face. The kind that comes with a good cry, or, in this case, a bad cry. Jake had been struggling with depression for a few years, and he was having a breakdown in front of his parents and his then-girlfriend, Anna. This particular bout of depression was especially dark, leading Jake to say some scary things—things that make loved ones worry about the future. Jake's snot kept running, mixing with his tears. Anna had been a force for good in Jake’s life, but she couldn’t always pull him back from the ledge; anyone who loves someone with depression knows the feeling. So, in that moment, she did what anyone would do: she reached over and spread Jake’s snot all over his face. That’s right. In Jake’s deepest despair, Anna decided that what he really needed was to have his snot smeared from his lip to his eyebrows. Unconventional, to say the least, but the mood immediately shifted. Jake burst out laughing. His family laughed, and Anna (I’m sure) breathed a deep sigh of relief. In that moment, Anna had made the perfect move. It wasn’t a cure for the deep-seated depression, but it was just the right thing, at just the right time. And it gave Jake the breath of air that he desperately needed. It made no sense in the moment, but, looking back through an informed lens, it makes all the sense in the world. At The Colossian Forum, we would call that a moment of faithful imagination. It is our deeply held belief that the moments where we feel most helpless—moments of conflict in dealing with the deepest hurts and the hardest questions—are the moments where we most need the abiding power of the Holy Spirit to provide us with the tools to bring reconciliation. The tools to imagine new ways to be obedient, especially when it's most difficult. Faithful imagination asks the God of the universe to show up—right here and right now—to give us something we don’t have on our own: a way forward. We need to love our brothers and sisters while speaking the truth of the Bible; we need to comfort those who are hurting when we don’t have answers; we need to reflect light in darkness when we don’t have words; and we need to know that God is giving us the tools we need to do it all well. But how? There is no easy answer—no silver bullet. Instead, there is the power of the Gospel to transform us into the kinds of people who can bring a new imagination into the most difficult problems. Jesus Christ lived on this earth, in human form, living a perfect life. Life was no simpler then. And yet Christ did something for us that would change the course of history by submitting himself to be crucified for us. To die, to be buried, and to rise again to give us eternal life with him. We, as Christians, believe in that momentous act as the most important one in history. We also believe that it means something today. It empowers us, through the Holy Spirit, to cultivate imaginative ways to navigate the most difficult problems we face. The power of the resurrection isn’t confined to one day 2,000 years ago, and it doesn’t start and stop on Sunday mornings. The power of the resurrection makes a difference today. Right here, right now. The Colossian Forum’s mission is to provide some of the tools and practices that help to form us into the kinds of Christians who can bring Gospel-centered imagination to the most difficult problems—to form us into the kinds of souls who ask the Holy Spirit for just the right thing at just the right time. Even when that means an unexpected move to bring a loved one out of the deepest despair. It worked for Jake and Anna. As it turns out, they are now married and have two beautiful kids, adding plenty of runny noses to the family. If you would like to learn more about The Colossian Forum, attend an event, or sign up for our small-group leader training, we would love to connect. Get more information here, and stay connected with us here. *This story is true, but the names have been changed.

In my previous post, I posited the possibility that we as believers have lost our “theological imagination.” Such an imagination opens doors to new ways of thinking, especially when we are engulfed in deep cultural divides and unable to envision anything beyond the tedious FOX & CNN polarities. I suggested that our ability to be a hopeful people is rooted in our capacity to imagine and live in God’s faithfulness to us through Christ. Because of Christ’s sacrificial death, we are freed from sin and the fear of death to love as he loved—sacrificially. I left you with this question to ponder: How will others experience resurrection hope if we don’t follow Christ by shouldering our cross and loving even those with whom we disagree? Perhaps you, like me, have found that the call to love sacrificially is quickly silenced in the din of our postmodern world. It’s easier to blame our lack of hope on those across the cultural divide rather than our own fear and failure to live into God’s kingdom now. We often lose sight of the resurrection and its power to free us from the hopelessness that seeps in from the endless rancor of warring rhetoric. Might our culture’s “zombie apocalypse” narrative be a direct result of Christians failing to witness to a real resurrection hope? This world’s only hope—our only hope—of experiencing Christ’s sacrificial love is to witness Christians willing to lay down their lives, or at least their arguments, for their enemies. Are we willing to embody that hope? If we are, we will slowly and almost imperceptibly begin to represent the good news and become a tantalizing morsel of the hope for which our world is desperate. What if the cultural polarization evident in our globalized and fragmented age turns out to be our best opportunity to let the reconciling power of the gospel shine most brightly? What if this fear, polarization, and division is creating a new, post-Christendom appetite for the ministry of reconciliation given to us by Christ? Bland optimism? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s the gospel opportunity set before us each day. We are made to hope. We long to hope. We need to give a reason for the hope that is in us (1 Pet.3:15). Ironically, it’s only as we learn to resituate other forms of hope—wealth, success, personal ability, physical beauty, offspring, a long life—pouring them out for those we have been called to serve, that we come to know the genuine hope found in our risen Lord. Even when we do this effectively and faithfully, the world doesn’t suddenly reshape itself in the image of our hope. Instead it requires, as it did with Jesus, that God vindicates our lives in the resurrection. No, that’s not quite right, is it? God has already vindicated our lives through Christ, and his resurrected life—the life that was, and is, and is to come—is our life. That’s why The Colossian Forum’s mission is to equip the church—to equip you—with concrete practices that will train and free you to walk confidently into places of brokenness and alienation, and love sacrificially. Our prayer is that you will both taste and be a taste of the hope we have in Christ. Moving from fear to hope is our task. And that is the theme of our first conference to be held this week, September 20-22, 2018. Over 150 attendees will gather to learn more about practicing hope in the midst of cultural despair. We’re all struggling toward hope. I hope that you’ll continue on this journey with us—practicing, praying, loving, experiencing Christ’s power—as, together, we persistently move from fear to hope.

A year ago, I wrote a prayer letter in response to a surprising outcome of Christians engaging conflict together in the presence of God as an act of worship. Over and over, leaders trained in The Colossian Way tell us that they’re not only discovering the ability to live faithfully amidst conflict, but also how just being together through conflict reveals a deep and abiding loneliness afflicting their lives. In a spate of recent news articles triggered by a health report, loneliness is back in the spotlight (see e.g., USA Today, US News & World Report, and Comment). In the report, the physiological effect of loneliness is equated to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is a disease ravaging our nation, churches, and families. Especially concerning is the reality that the primary victims of loneliness are those most awash in an endless stream of digital communication—our youth. I was struck by these articles, in part, because just the week prior my wife and I confessed to some of our closest friends that one of our deepest spiritual hurts is indeed loneliness. This seems a strange affliction for two people who constantly feel overwhelmed by endless email, tweets, posts, texts, and phone calls. How can we be lonely amidst all this noise? Loneliness, disease, poverty, sickness. These are not words we associate with America or the American church, but they afflict us nonetheless. We feel vulnerable and silly even saying them out loud. Perhaps we’re not the only ones feeling alone—oddballs who need to get it together. According to Jamie Smith’s Comment editorial: “You are alone. Except there are hundreds of thousands of you. You’re not alone in being lonely—not that that makes you any less lonely. Loneliness—often a factor of social isolation—has become a societal epidemic in late capitalist societies. The Centre for Social Justice provides a succinct snapshot in the United Kingdom, for example: As many as 800,000 people in England are chronically lonely and many more experience some degree of loneliness. 17 percent of older people interact with family, friends or neighbours less than once a week, while 11 percent do so less than once a month. It is linked to cardiovascular disease, dementia and depression and according to some researchers, its effect on mortality is similar to smoking and worse than obesity. One study revealed that it can increase the risk of an early death by as much as 30 percent. In addition to this there is a strong link between isolation and poverty: having two or more close friends reduces the likelihood of poverty by nearly 20 percent.” So, what’s the relationship between conflict (our fear of it and our incapacity to engage it well) and loneliness? My own experience and the experience of hundreds of Colossian Way participants has been that despite ubiquitous digital communication, we are cut off from communion with those we love because of our fear of getting conflict wrong. Ironically, we are most in need of fellowship and friendship at the very places we are most afraid. Hence, we suffer spiritually, emotionally, and even physically from a poverty of friendship. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Mother Teresa said years ago that, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty—it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.” When asked by an American reporter to name the poorest country she’d visited, Mother Teresa responded, “I have been to many countries and seen much poverty and suffering. Everywhere I go people tell me of their hardships and struggles, and ask for help, and I give what I can. But of all the countries I have been to, the poorest one I have been to is America.” Somewhat shocked, the reporter informed Mother Teresa that America was one of the richest countries and questioned how it could be the poorest. “Because”, she replied, “America suffers most from the poverty of loneliness.” Let’s face it, our engagement with conflict as an act of worship won’t fix the world any more than Mother Teresa’s cup of water for the dying. Yet, as captives of hope we believe these small acts testify to a reality bigger and more beautiful than we can imagine. Even though we only see “as through a glass darkly” these little eschatological foretastes of what will be enable us to participate more fully in the deepest truth of the world, in contrast to the endless news cycle of violence and conflict. We can say this with confidence because we’ve seen the kingdom break forth already through our Lord’s death and resurrection, and in multiple iterations of that resurrection in our own lives of worship and witness. As we risk laying down our lives, or at least our arguments, we become a cup of water to a dying world—marking the inbreaking of the new world. And what better way to quench the thirst for relationship hidden at the core of our deepest conflicts.